All We Are
by Veronique Roux
Summary: It's been a few weeks since the Avengers were brought together, and sleep still isn't easy to come by.


hey guys(:

so, this is my second Avengers fic so far. I'm going to see it in IMAX this weekend I'm so freaking excited :DDDD

also, writing this literally gave me a nosebleed. that, or it was a delayed reaction from falling on my face when I ran my bike into a curb today. c'est la vie :(

I'm just going to get to it then. This is just a fluffy team fic. I have this little tugging in the back of my mind that makes me kind of think this might have been inspired by some other story but I can't remember for the friggin life of me what it is.

Enjoy!

* * *

_I can't sleep, no, not like I used to_

_And I can't breathe in and out like I need to_

_Goodbye, Apathy- OneRepublic_

* * *

She wasn't jittery.

She wasn't too cold, or too warm. She felt perfectly fine. She wasn't hungry. She hadn't eaten recently, or even been working out. She wasn't on any medications.

She wasn't even particularly uncomfortable.

But Natasha lay in her bed, eyes wide as she stared at the ceiling of her darkened bedroom, and she wasn't sure if she'd ever felt less tired.

Natasha was very good at hiding how she felt, but she'd been barely managing to drag herself through each day. She was running on about six hours of sleep per week, and this had been going on for nearly a month. She made her way through an arsenal of coffee cups every morning, and spent her days wired and jumpy. Fury had sent her home twice in the past few weeks, deeming her 'currently unfit for active duty'.

She was relatively sure that the others weren't much better off.

She sighed. It was, she supposed, a bit stuffy.

Silently, in a rather catlike manner, she rose and crept out the door. She had no real reason to be quiet, seeing as Tony had actually built each of them their own floor, but it was a bit of a habit, so she went with it. The main rec floor was three floors down, and she decided to take the elevator just this once. After all, physical activity before bed keeps you awake.

Not that it really matters.

She ignored the 65" flatscreen mounted on the wall, instead opting to begin to laboriously shove the glass coffee table out of the way. She then ripped all the cushions off of the couch, leaving one soft downy pillow, which she set on the chair for future reference.

Seeing as it appeared to be king size, like every single other bed in the house, the pull out bed was freakishly heavy, and seemed to be stuck in there. Or maybe she just didn't have good footing.

Natasha cracked her neck, and was about to try again when a soft voice interrupted her.

"Need some help with that?"

She jumped nearly a foot, and took a second to relax again before she turned to Clint with a glare.

"Don't _do_ that!", she hissed at him, "And no, Barton, I'm fine."

She tugged on it haplessly for a few more seconds, to no effect. After a moment, it unexpectedly came free and she nearly fell back at the sudden motion.

"See?", she started to say, turning back towards the archer, "What did I tell..."

Clint sheepishly stepped back from the couch, hiding a smile. "Good job, Nat."

Natasha gave him a withering look and pulled the bed out the rest of the way, grabbing the remote as she flopped down on her back. "Throw me that pillow, will you?"

Clint did as he was asked, and she tucked it under her tousled curls. He stretched out on the bed next to her as she decided on The Office and dropped the remote above her head.

"Get your own damn pillow," she muttered, staring up at the TV with a ghost of a smile.

A footstep sounded at the top of the stairs, on Natasha's side, and both sat bolt upright, examining the darkened hallway.

Thor leaned around the corner curiously. His hair was a bit mussed, but still altogether presentable.

"My apologies, Hawk, Widow. I heard the levitating device and wondered who was awake at such an hour."

"No, it's fine, Thor," Natasha replied a little uncharacteristically, "I take it you can't sleep either." She yawned. She was actually getting a little tired. It didn't make any sense, but somehow right now, she didn't feel that she needed to have her guard up. She felt safe.

In all actuality, this had something to do with Clint's arm around her waist, but she'd never admit that.

"I suppose not," he answered with a touch of bitterness. He sat on the side of the bed.

"Come on, relax, this thing is like sleeping pills," Clint added.

A little bemusedly, the Asgardian complied, and Clint and Natasha laid back on the bed. Natasha's eyes slid shut slowly, but she didn't quite fall asleep yet.

The elevator's doors clinked shut behind Bruce and Tony. Steve had instructed them to get to bed at about midnight, saying that they never knew what might pop up the next day, but the two had actually just dressed in clothes a bit more apt for sleep, and returned to the lab to finish up their latest project.

It was nearly four in the morning, though, so they decided to investigate when the elevator went passed twice.

"Hello?", Tony called into the TV room. The TV was off, pillows were all over the room, the coffee table had been dragged out towards the wall, and they could vaguely hear the sound of deep breathing.

"Did a bunch of girls have a pillow fight in here?," Tony paused, "Because if they did, and I missed it...I will be so _pissed_."

Bruce gave him a look, but whatever reply he might have given was cut off by a low groan of, "Shut _up_, people are trying to sleep..."

"What?", Bruce muttered, stepping further into the room.

The couch had been torn apart, a bed pulled out from it, and lying on the thin mattress was (and this is from left to right, not up to down or something weird like that) Clint, Natasha, and Thor.

"That thing has a pull out bed?" Tony crossed his arms in annoyance. "No friggin' wonder. Do you have any idea how expensive that was? And I thought I was wasting my money."

"Tony, you do that all the time."

"That doesn't make it a good idea," he whispered back, and then said slightly louder, "If you guys are having a sleepover and you didn't tell me, I'm kicking you all out on your asses."

With that, he flopped down on his back next to Clint, who groaned and murmured something about being gentle.

"Really, Ton-"

Bruce was cut off as Tony dragged him onto the bed next to him. "Live a little, Brucey."

There was a brief silence, and after a moment, "What are you all doing down here?"

Steve looked a little worse for wear. There were dark circles under his eyes, he was a little thin, and his hair was sticking up every which way.

"Mmm...if you're down here just lay down," Natasha mumbled a little incoherently, "We're sleeping."

* * *

None of them fully woke up or got up until almost noon.

Natasha had, however, woken up briefly at about seven. That was still a lot longer than she'd slept in one consecutive period for longer than she'd care to admit.

She hadn't hadn't any nightmares. She had slept deeply and easily.

She woke at seven in a haze of pale sunlight and warmth. Clint's arms were still around her, and she was glad no one else was awake so that she didn't have to push him off. Thor, on her other side, was literally radiating heat from where he lay sprawled out comically on his stomach.

She felt a happiness she'd rarely known in her life.

Natalia Romanova slipped back into dreams with a smile on her lips.


End file.
